


forbidden fruit

by waterlit



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fire Nation Royal Family, Forbidden Love, Infidelity, Not Canon Compliant, Tragedy, Tragic Romance, War, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8498053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlit/pseuds/waterlit
Summary: —and this is how they doom the world.





	

It is midnight, and Katara slips away from her chambers and into the Fire Lord's private rooms.

"Katara," he whispers, his hands around her waist as they meet in the dark.

His pants are already tight against his skin as he dips his nose into the river of her hair. She smells of incense, of exotic spices, of violets and lilies, and she is in his arms, warm and breathing—so unlike Mai, who soaks herself only in soft rosewater, so unlike Mai, who has pulled herself ever closer since he crowned her, so unlike Mai, who is sleeping alone in her cold bed in the Fire Lady's suite, dreaming of ghosts that step lightly around her defences.

"Zuko," Katara says, her lips inching across his skin, and he pulls her closer.

"We shouldn't," he says, when Katara moves her lips away. "We shouldn't—Katara, what if Aang—"

"He will never find out," Katara says. She moves her hand to the sash on his robe.

Zuko wants to believe her. He wills himself to believe her—and slides his hands down her thighs as they tumble backwards.

* * *

They will go down in history, their names curled in splatters of ink and dusted with contempt—these two, the wretched lord and the lowly peasant, the lustful love between them a bonfire of uncertain strength racing against the firebreak until the world goes up in smoke.

Zuko the Destroyer, they will call him, as they cast down his statues and spit on the marble cast of his royal brow, Zuko the Selfish, Zuko the Thief.

Katara the Unfaithful, they will call her, Katara the peasant, Katara the serpent, undeserving helpmeet of the Avatar and mistress of the most undignified Fire Lord in history, and now hers is a damned name in the history scrolls, her discoveries of new waterbending techniques always prefaced with a warning against lust and uncontrolled desire.

* * *

"Kiss me," Katara says, and he does, his lips ghosting across her jawline.

"I love you," he says, and he means it.

"I love you too," Katara says. "More than you could imagine."

"Try me," he says, and she rides him.

* * *

They are happy, these two, unaware of what the future will bring, of their roles as villains in the flowing centuries.

They lie tangled together under the silk-soft sheets and dream of bliss and glory, of peace and love.

The day will come when the Avatar enters in the middle of their lovemaking, and he will scream and go into a frenzy—and then the tide will turn against them.

Dissatisfied noblemen will rise against their Fire Lord, shouting for the Water Nation vixen to be boiled alive, for the Water Nations to pay taxes of an unprecedented nature, for the Fire Lord to step down and abdicate his throne to his mad sister.

There will be war; blood will be spilled again, and battle cries will ring against the orange dawn as the newly crowned and hopelessly mad Fire Lord issues an edict of battle against the Fire Nation's most hated enemies, the dark-skinned and blue-eyed people of the sea.

That day is nearing.

* * *

"I love you, Zuko," Katara says, dressing in the dim candlelight.

"I love you too," Zuko says. "I wish we could stay like this forever."

* * *

_They were buried together_ , the loremasters recite.

 _Together_? The students ask.

_Yes, together. Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe fled with their bodies from the capital of the Fire Nation after the massacre began, and it is said that he buried them together in the Earth Nation somewhere near the lost city of Omashu._

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on FFN in Dec 2013.


End file.
